...Okay, maybe he regrets his choice of delivery a little.

Aurin is back one cup of tea later. "Inconsiderate ass of a cousin," he says, "may I ask why?"

"I'm sorry I made you choke all over your girlfriend," he says, "that was inconsiderate and unnecessary. Do you actually want to know why I'm staying a shren?"

"Also asking why you were unnecessarily inconsiderate, but yes, I do actually want to know."

"I was unnecessarily inconsiderate because I'm getting wound up in advance about the amount of shit I expect to catch over this decision," he says, "and I unfairly and impulsively decided to tweak you about it, so, sorry again. I'm staying a shren because... well, first of all because if the miracle worker is to be believed we're not contagious anymore, that's what pushed me into a definite permanent decision."

"...well, that's good, but one would have naively expected it would never matter again, so..."

"Yeah. Okay. You are without a doubt going to call me fucking crazy, but: I don't really care that much about whether or not I can fly in my natural form," he says. "I don't miss it or anything. By itself it is a non-issue to me. So with contagion out, the only remaining reason to stop being a shren is purely to get out from under that word and all the nasty letters to the editor and estranged grandfathers and internal emotional conflicts that go with it. And if I stop being a shren for that reason, I'm letting the word win. In a sense I'd be agreeing that a shren is such an awful thing to be that even if I don't care about the actual impairment, I still need to stop. And of course I can't do that. I have spent my entire life not doing that as aggressively as possible. I'm not about to quit now."

"She took the miracle," he shrugs. "But she seemed to get why I didn't."

"...seemed to," says Aurin, shifting uncomfortably.

"...What?"

"I just - have you given any thought to whether Finnah might have, like. Thoughts. That are specific to having been the one who got you."

"...I really don't - Finnah has got drunk around me, you know, right, we sometimes do the thing where we go to bars and hit on girls and then whatever the tastes of the girls somebody wins? I should not be repeating the words of Fourth Glass Of Redreed Pineapple Cocktail Finnah. But such a Finnah has existed and said words."

"Well. Thanks for pointing me to that potential complication," he says. "I guess I'll... I don't even know if I should talk to her about it. But I'm still staying a shren."

"Don't tell her I mentioned it."

"I mean... maybe it will cancel out a little with the not-contagious thing?" says Aurin dubiously.

"On the other hand," he says, "with the not-contagious thing, it becomes totally safe for me to obnoxiously walk around in natural form. I mean, I'm going to wait for the not-contagious thing to be confirmed common knowledge first, I'm not about to take stupid risks with other people's wings. But I can't imagine anybody'll love me for it, even so."

"Oh, hell, Mial, why would you do that? You'll just spook people."

"Well, I'm only going to do it once their reason to be spooked has been thoroughly proved gone," he says. "And I'm not gonna do it all the time. But sometimes I just feel an intense need to be obnoxiously a shren."

"The language hasn't caught up yet, I'm not sure it's going to. Somebody tells their forty-year-old that it's okay and there's been a series of miracles and Draconic still says aieeeeeee and then you walk down the street...?"

"Oh, fuck Draconic," Mial growls.